Xcel Playing dirty on coal plant plan: It wants us to bear cost now for plant that might never materialize

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”] Boulder Daily Camera 30 April 2006 Hey, fellow Xcel ratepayers: weary after a long winter of double-digit rate increases? Watch out! Another rate increase to finance a polluting coal plant is hidden inside Xcel’s latest “rate adjustments.” These rate “adjustments” bundle a short-term rate decrease with a long-term rate increase. The long-term increase uses a “Construction Work in Progress” mechanism to finance a large coal plant in Pueblo. Most other states forbid or restrict CWIP financing. Xcel’s recent and impressive...

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Bell Starr of SolFest Southwest

Hunter possesses that rare combination of spunky spontaneity and down-home credibility. She presents well and in that I mean, she has the remarkable ability to deliver powerful statistics from years of research, coupled with the solutions that turn those discouraging statistics into practical applications for a sustainable future. And Hunter is down right fun! The cowboy had really helped smooth the way for our conservative Scottsdale audience. -Bell Starr, SolFest Southwest Director

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A Vison For Green Afghanistan

A Brief Proposal for a Comprehensive Strategy to Develop a Competitive and Sustainable Afghanistan Afghanistan faces enormous challenges. After almost 30 years of war, much of its infrastructure is in ruins, or was never completed. In the wake of 9-11, the international community, recognizing the threat to world peace of a devastated Afghanistan, pledged billions of dollars to rebuild the country. This has created a unique, but narrow window of opportunity to rebuild the country using the growing body of best practice in sustainable technologies.[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px”...

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Natural Capitalism: Path to Sustainability?

Corporate Environmental Strategy July 2001 In this article, the Lovins’2 explain what is meant by Natural Capitalism, four principles that enable business to behave responsibly towards both nature and people while increasing profits, inspiring their workforce and gaining competitive advantage. It combines radically increased resource productivity; closed-loop, zero-waste, nontoxic production; a business model that rewards both; and reinvestment in natural capital. The article describes how, even today, when nature and people are typically valued at zero, protecting and restoring nature, culture and community can be far more profitable than liquidating them.

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The Challenge of Globalization

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”] Also in The Aspen Institute’s 50th Anniversary Symposium “Globalization and Culture” The Impact of Globalization  Many people watched the recent protests against globalization in Prague, Melbourne, Washington, and Seattle, and wondered what all the fuss was about. Few would dispute that globalization has become a source of dissension, but fewer can describe the issues, and fewer still know what to do about them. Once an academic topic for policy analysts, globalization is now inciting demonstrations on a scale unseen since the...

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Energy Surprises for the 21st Century

By L. Hunter Lovins and Amory B. Lovins Also in Green@Work May/June 2000. [download .pdf of full article, PART I] [download .pdf of full article, PART II] PART I: Twenty-three years ago, claims that energy efficiency would shift United States energy use patterns, reducing overall consumption far below official forecasts, were laughed at. Today, total U.S. energy use is below the level suggested in the “soft energy path” (see figure). In all but five of the intervening years the amount of energy consumed per dollar of GDP fell—a total drop of more than 35 percent since 1973. Renewable energy sources, delayed by...

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Design Failure and Conservation

Also in Conservation Biology, Volume 16 #2, 2000. H. L. Menchen said that for every problem there is an answer that is short, simple, and wrong.  David Orr is one of the few thinkers who seeks to understand the broad-reaching interconnections among problems, and their relationships to biological diversity, conservation issues, and the creation of a decent and healthy world. Such a vision across boundaries enables him to see root causes and to offer answers based on whole-system understanding. He is correct that our current vulnerability–economic, ecological, food, security–is not so much a result of too little military, as it is...

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